1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording apparatus including an optical disk drive, software for controlling an information recording apparatus, a control device for an information recording apparatus, an information recording medium and an information recording method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-283443 Official Gazette refers to an optical recording medium for an optical disk drive that can reproduce or record information at the optimum condition stably. The recording medium has a recordable recording layer on a substrate. The recording layer has a manufacturer recording area in which the manufacturer can record information. In the manufacturer recording area, drive control information peculiar to the optical recording medium is recorded. When an optical disk drive records information on an optical recording medium, the optical disk drive reproduces or records information at the optimum condition based on the drive control information recorded on the optical recording medium.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-334433 Official Gazette discloses an information recording method which is directed to keep enough time for heating and cooling by simple pulse control method, to record marks having intended length at high speed without increasing the speed of the light source driving portion. According to the information recording method, the optical recording medium can be heated and cooled sufficiently by adding a heat pulse Hmp and cool pulse Cmp in response per mark data length 2T added. In this regard, the erase pulse E2 or E3 whose light power is higher or lower than erase power Pe1 to control the mark length is added at the head of the erase area which is placed on the back of the rearmost cool pulse Cend. Therefore, the position of the rear edge of the mark can be controlled corresponding to the mark length with high accuracy by the simple pulse control method. That is, in this method, it is only necessary to set the level of rearmost cool pulse Cend, and second erase power of erase pulse E2 or E3 or third erase power in combination, and the pattern of each heat pulse in the multi pulse train does not need to be controlled.
Generally, the recording condition, including the power and the width of the recording pulse (for example the respective parameter described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-334433 Official Gazette), should be determined when an information recording apparatus records data on optical disks, including CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW. The recording condition is referred to as the write strategy. The optimum write strategy depends on the characteristics of the recording material and the substrate of the optical disk. So the optimum write strategy differs according to the manufacturer and the kind of optical disk.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-283443 Official Gazette, the optimum write strategy information is recorded on the optical disk in advance, and the information recording apparatus refers to the optimum write strategy information retrieved from the optical disk, and determines the optimum write strategy. But it is not necessarily the case that the optimum write strategy information recorded on the optical disk can apply to any information recording apparatus made by any manufacturer without modification. This is because optical system parameters, including the wavelength of the light emitted from the laser diode and the numerical aperture (NA) of the objective lens, and the rise time of the recording pulses, differ depending on the manufacturers of the information recording apparatuses. Accordingly, some of the information recording apparatuses cannot record information on the optical recording medium, described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-283443 Official Gazette, at the optimum condition.
At the same time, there is a method such that optical disk information, including manufacturer code, classification and version number corresponding to the respective optical disk is recorded on the optical disk, while optimum write strategy information of various optical disks is stored, correlating with the optical disk information, in a memory of the information recording apparatus. In this method, the information recording apparatus retrieves the optical disk information, including manufacturer code, classification and version number from the loaded optical disk before recording information on the optical disk. The optical disk information is checked against the optimum write strategy information stored in advance in the write strategy information table. When the write strategy corresponding to the optical disk is found out, the information recording apparatus set the write strategy for recording information.
The optimum write strategy can be determined for predetermined combinations of an information recording apparatus (manufacturer) and an optical disk by this method. However, when an optical disk whose write strategy information is not stored in the write strategy table of the information recording apparatus (an optical disk whose write strategy information is unknown) is loaded, the information recording apparatus cannot determine the optimum write strategy. Accordingly, the information recording apparatus cannot record information at the optimum recording condition on some optical recording media.